


One Morning in May

by Kicker



Series: Pre-War Shenanigans [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Pre-War, self indulgent nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 05:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7878628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kicker/pseuds/Kicker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Saturday morning dance class isn't something that would normally fill a person with horror. Not unless you're Corinna May and you have very strong opinions about the sort of music you might actually want to dance to.</p><p>Luckily her BFF, Nate McKay, has her back.</p><p>(self-indulgent pre-war twaddle. more info in the notes.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Morning in May

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bridging fic between [One Night at the Orpheum](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7814653) and whatever comes next. They were only supposed to meet once, but a certain person (naming no names) is a terrible influence so all of a sudden I needed someone to take Corinna dancing. Nate held up his hand saying OOH OOH PICK ME PICK ME then entirely ran away with the show. 
> 
> He did have his story stolen by Cait so you know. It's kind of fair.
> 
> Starring:  
> Corinna May ([Red Flags and Flight Suits](http://archiveofourown.org/series/396475))  
> Nate McKay ([Reject Squad](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6126102))  
> Russell ([Deichqueen](http://deichqueen.tumblr.com)'s Sole Survivor)  
> and Ruby, Nate's eventual wife ([How to Approach the Maxson Dumpster](http://kickerwrites.tumblr.com/post/144796757948/how-to-safely-approach-the-maxson-dumpster), an instructional video.)
> 
> and [here is an art](http://kickerwrites.tumblr.com/post/149500135965/atisha-revas-holy-shit-i-really-cant-draw) of what may or may not be happening outside the hall. ;)

Every Saturday morning, there's a dance class held in the hall of St Peter's Church in the North End of Boston. Folks go there to practice their moves, hang out with friends, or just have a good time.

On the morning of the 6th of May, 2073, the room's pretty full, with half a dozen couples on the floor and a few strays hovering around the edges either catching their breath or waiting to butt in. Nate McKay is often one of those strays, though not for long once he gets his first dance. Something in the way he moves, or you know. Your guess is as good as his.

This time, though, he's had a partner right from the moment he walked in the door. A partner who's wearing an expression of angry concentration and a creamy silk dress that hugs her in all the right places. Which is no more than you'd expect from the caliber of dressmaker to which Corinna May normally goes.

"I hate this song," she says.

"You hated the last one," he says.

"I did hate it," she says. "I hate this one too."

"Don't let it get to you," he says. "Come on, pick your feet up,"

"They are up," she says, with a resentful grimace. "Who died and made you instructor, anyway?"

But she picks them up, and she does make an effort, and it's obvious she's pretty good even if she would get a score of zero for 'good cheer' and 'apparent willingness'.

Then at some point things change. She doesn't exactly start smiling and enjoying herself, but she does put a bit more effort into her placement and she gets a whole lot... closer.

"Corinna," says Nate, "you're rubbing yourself on me."

"I am not," she replies.

"You are," he says. "Like a cat winding itself around a pair of legs."

"Oh, Nate," she says, stepping around behind him, running her hands over the back of his pants and resting her chin over his shoulder. "You're so much more than a pair of legs."

He grins and holds up his hand to pull her back in front of him. "You've seen someone you like, haven't you."

"No," she says, but the corner of her mouth ticks up and betrays her.

"I knew it," he says, "I knew from the moment you did that first leg-wrap. You know that's not a sanctioned move, by the way. Do I have to show you the rule book again?"

"Come on, as if I'm going to let a book tell me what to do," she says, wrapping her leg around the back of his thigh again. "Dip me."

He shrugs, and does, and when her hair's nearly touching the floor he speaks.

"You," he says, “are showing off," and pulls her back up in a move that makes her hair fall over her face. She throws it back with a shake that returns it to its original position.

"Me?" she says, with an innocent expression that's not about to fool anyone.

"You," he says, and spins her around. "Okay, who is it? Oh wait, this is the shakey-hand bit you hate."

She groans and pulls a face, and after it the song's nearly over so he gives her the eye-widening _ixnay on the atchay, let's get this over with_ look and she actually starts to concentrate on what she's doing.

With a quick (also unsanctioned) high five they go back to their corner to do a bit of people-watching. She cracks open a Nuka-Cola, tossing the cap on the table. It skitters and falls off the back of it, rolling away and disappearing under the radiator at the side of the room. She shrugs and plucks a straw from a dispenser, shoves it in the bottle, and turns back around to the room. "With the redhead in glasses."

Nate scans the room to identify the target. It's pretty obvious who she's talking about because the redhead in question keeps skimming through the beams of sunlight shining in through the hall's windows, her hair burning bright every time she does.

"Wow," he says. "She's cute."

"Not her, with her," she says. "Though you're right, she is."

He watches for a little longer, trying to tear his eyes away from the girl because she really  _is_  cute, and she's got this neat little way of moving that makes her skirt just flip up at the hem and show some tantalizing glimpses of knee.

He tries again, and manages to look at her partner this time.

"Dark hair, blue eyes, broken nose? Corinna, if you're in love with me you can just tell me."

She punches his arm. "Shut up," she says. "He's nothing like you."

"Oh," he says. "You know already, huh? Where have you been hiding him? And why's he with someone else? Is there drama? You know I love drama."

"I haven't been hiding him at all, I haven't seen him. You remember back in September, you got tickets for the Orpheum?"

Nate casts back his mind. "I barely remember last week," he says. "But I do know I haven't been to the Orpheum in years."

She narrows her eyes. "Well, you never showed, did you."

"Oh," he says. "Wow. What an asshole. What was I doing?"

"That guy you were dating for a while after," she says. "Pete?"

"Oh," he says, the single syllable coming out much longer that time as he took a moment to reminisce. "Worth it."

She raises an eyebrow. "Worth it? To leave me all on my own, with _that_ damned music?"

He grins and nudges her elbow with his own. "You didn't _have_ to go. And I thought you were about to tell me how you found your own entertainment?"

"Yeah, well," she says, stabbing the straw into the bottle. "You know I'm a sucker for terrible chat-up lines."

"Uh-huh."

She shrugs. "He delivered."

Nate grins. "Oh boy," he says. "Can I guess?"

She holds up her hand, palm up, _go right ahead_.

Nate thinks. "Got any [insert nationality here] in you? Want some?"

She covers her mouth with her hand to suppress the laugh, and shakes her head.

"If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put U and I together?"

"Ew," she says. "That wouldn't work, no messing with the alphabet on my watch."

"Okay," he says. "I give up. Out with it."

She turns and rests her elbow on an imaginary bar or counter.

"If I said you had a beautiful body," she purrs, and her eyes flicker down to Nate's chest, lingering there for a moment before returning to his eyes, via his lips. "Would you hold it against me?"

"Yes," says Nate. "Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Wait, you mean that's what he said?"

"You see?" she says. "In the grand scheme of bad chat-up lines, that's pretty good, right?"

The song draws to a close, and over her shoulder Nate spots a head of bright red hair. By pure chance, she and this mysterious stranger have finished their dance on the opposite side to which they started. Coincidence. Fate. Call it what you will.

"Act casual," he says, "he's coming over."

Many people would hear those words, _act casual_ , and do the exact opposite. Flushed face, wide eyes, desperately coming up with Super Casual Things To Say and that's partly why Nate says it like that, because he finds that shit hilarious.

Corinna, though, she's actually good at it, so she slips immediately into cool, insouciant Corinna, Corinna who couldn't give two shits who's about to drift into her field of vision. Corinna who's closing her lips around the straw tucked in the neck of her Nuka-Cola bottle and staring into the distance.

Okay, that's not so much cool and insouciant as calculated and somewhat cynical.

The guy tries not to notice. He does try, but instead he ends up raking his eyes up and down her body, over the dress that does feel just as silky as it looks, by the way, and back up to her eyes.

"Corinna," he says.

And Nate has to suppress a smile, because her impression of his voice was perfect.

She leaves it just that perfect length of time to reply, around three point five oh seconds because four is too long and three dead seems too eager, Nate knows how that works, then she lets the faintest hint of a smile play over her lips and the slightest tilt to lift her chin.

"Russell," she says.

And the guy - Russell - smiles, and nods approvingly like she passed some kind of test, and he's lucky that his redheaded friend is beside him and can't see the way those blue eyes darken or his cheek would be darkening with a slap.

Well. She doesn't look the sort. She looks far too sweet for that, with the flush of exertion in her cheeks and what Nate's flattering himself in thinking is a sparkle in her eye when she looks at him.

The instructor calls out the next song and shouts some suggestions of things to try. Russell and his lady-friend turn away with polite nods.

"Okay," says Nate. "Now that awkwardness is done with, let's get back on it."

Corinna rolls her eyes.

"Come on," he says. "We need to practice."

"I'm tired," she says. "And I really hate this song. Can't we sit this one out?"

"No," he says, already mentally going through the steps. He grabs her hand and pulls it, but she remains stubbornly in position.

"You should be grateful I'm here at all," she says. "I'm doing this for you."

"No you're not," he says. "I'm doing it for you. You're the one with the fancy-schmancy do you want to look good at."

She rolls her eyes again, fast though, more of a flicker, and looks like she's about to move. "Um," she says. "Just let me powder my nose."

"Your nose is perfect," he says.

"Civilization, baby," she half-sings, then continues through slightly gritted teeth, "I have to pee."

"Okay, fine, go," he says. "Jeez."

He turns back and leans heavily against the table. And chance, providence, whatever it is has him looking over some way to the left. The redhead is leaning against a table herself, shoulders high, arms long and locked beside her, fingers curling around the edge of it.

Alone.

He looks around. No sign of this Russell anywhere.

Nate shakes his head and laughs. "You sly... huh."

Red's foot is tapping and her head's just bobbing from side-to-side like she's already got all her moves planned. And Nate thinks; it'd be a crying shame for a lady to miss out on what might be her favorite song, don't you think?

He shoves his hands in his pockets and wanders on over.

"Hi," he says. "Name's Nate. Nate McKay. You sitting this out on purpose, or can I persuade you back out there?"

And this time he's sure it's a twinkle when she turns her eyes on him, and now she's close enough that he can see through the glasses to how deep and dark the brown of them is. "Ruby," she says, "And yeah. You can."

They don't know each other and there's only half the song left, so it's not the most thrilling of dances exactly but there's no accidental foot-stomping or awkward crashes, and he gets a couple more glimpses of knee and a few more twinkles out of her eyes.

Civilization, baby. I will stay right here, thank you very much.

"What do you do?" he asks, in the lull while the instructor tries to switch holotapes.

"Law," she says.

"Oh," he replies. "Corinna's a lawyer. You should talk. Compare casenotes."

She coughs. "I, uh... that's not really how things work."

She's looking over to the door, but she doesn't look particularly concerned that her date, or whatever, hasn't reappeared yet.

"Said he had to make a phonecall," she says, though Nate hadn't asked anything.

"Uh-huh?"

"Uh-huh."

"He your date?"

"She yours?"

Nate smiles. She doesn't give much away, that's for sure.

"No," he says. "Just friends. We grew up on the same street, went to school together, you know."

"Right," she says.

"So," says Nate. "You don't have to tell me, if you don't want."

She laughs, and shakes her head. "No," she says. "We already had the 'I just don't think I can commit right now' conversation, so this is the 'let's just be friends, I really want to, you know we can hang out whenever you like' stage."

"Oh," says Nate. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's okay," she says. "He's not really my type, anyway."

"Oh," says Nate, trying not to think about the dark-hair-blue-eyes-broken-nose comment he'd made before.

"Mouthy," she says. "Over-confident. And his chat-up lines are awful."

"Oh," says Nate, feeling a little better. "I should probably leave you to it, then. I'll only be a disappointment."

"Nate," she says, only hesitating slightly before she says his name. "I have a feeling you won't."

Just then, as the instructor finally finishes fumbling with the holotape deck and the first notes of the next song play out, Russell comes back into the room. His brow furrows.

"Don't worry," says Ruby, softly. "I'll handle him."

Nate smiles widely, and returns to his and Corinna's table.

Russell takes Ruby back out onto the floor with a pointed look at Nate, which is funny considering what he may or may not have been doing outside. Well. It’s either funny, or that twist in his stomach is from the cheeky wink that Ruby's giving him over her shoulder. Either way, during that song Corinna finally wanders back in, casual as anything, which means she's definitely been getting up to no good.

"Should I ask?" he says, as she leans beside him with a sigh.

"Come on," she says. "I do some dumb shit but in a church? I'm hurt that you could think that of me."

He raises his eyebrow.

"Seriously," she says.

He raises his other eyebrow to meet the first.

"Observe," she says, and gestures with her hand to her mouth. "Lipstick: unsmudged. Nor is it freshly reapplied. I am innocent of whatever crime you're imagining right now. Speaking of which, stop that. It's... weird."

"Plenty of stuff you can get up to without ruining your lipstick," he says.

"Nothing he's interested in," she says, drily.

The laugh that bursts out of him is loud enough to draw disapproving glares from about half of the people on the dancefloor, not excluding the man himself.

"I... I asked for that," he says, and claps his hand on her shoulder. "Okay. You win. Let's get out of here. You wanted to pick up the dress, right? I can't wait to see it."

"Oh yes," she says. "It's going to be a showstopper."


End file.
